Biography

I was born Edinburgh in 1973 and obtained a BA hons at Grays School of Art in Aberdeen prior to specialising in the life room at the Slade UCL for my MFA. In 1998, I returned to Grays where I taught life drawing then came back to Edinburgh where I have been continuing to work and paint.

I adopted a transient, ever-evolving style of painting having been influenced from my time at the Slade under the tutelage of Norman Norris and Euan Uglow. My paintings, although figurative in subject, are painted with abstract concerns in mind. They acknowledge the painted surface and rely on the colours and marks in a plastic way.
Contemporary artists such as De Kooning, Auerbach, Bacon, Howard Hodgkin and Gerhard Richter have all been influential to my work, while greats like Matisse and S J Peploe will always resonate within me. They all exhibit a capturing of instances or essences of a moment that are felt in a wholly sensory way as the paint itself commands the viewer with its plasticity.

I have been content with using the female nude as my subject as I am able to investigate colour, composition and painting in a very literal way. I seem to need the urgency that occurs while encountering a living being, trying to capture the essence of the encounter while exploring and being aware of the marks and colours that can be generated. I am continually investigating and exploring with colour as I try to improve my painterly vocabulary. As time passes even though my paintings may start with the figure they generally end up being about the weight of a colour or brushmark or the relationship one area has with another.